Future atheist replacement for "my God!"

This is a hard one, I've also been struggling with it. Finally I just took it out so I wouldn't have to deal it.
In Holland expressions with God in them have slowly become meshed together or replaced with words that don't make sense but sound the same - like "darn" instead of "damn" in English. This used to be to make those words less harsh, but they could also change like that because people just forget the originals.

But I don't really have a precise suggestion for you. If you insert "Omeegad" or "Geezis" in a sentence that's supposed to be impactful, it might just end up sounding ridiculous....

Right. For a time I was using "Cor" instead of God (from corblimey, from "God blind me"), and of course there's "gorram (it)" from "Firefly" from "God damn (it)" but I don't want to steal from Firefly. I might go with "Cor" cause I think it might work, but Geezus or Omeegad etc wouldn't probably hold up well... sigh.

Atheists still say "Oh my god!" and "What the hell?!". Unless you really want to call attention to the fact that they don't use such phrases, I'd say just go ahead and leave them in. Put god in lowercase to hint that they don't attach any significance to the word anymore and that it's just a cultural remnant.

maybe you can turn your sentence in another way to keep the impact you want and delete the all "God" thing.
something like "I can't believe you actually slept with her"... ?

Is there anything else that's held sacred in society? For example, if it were dystopian, governmentally ritualised you could use their name (this is just an example). Have them swear by something that's held in great respect.
I disagree with the idea that 'oh my god' as an atheist today would use it is the same as 'oh my god' as an atheist in that sort of world would, because we have a concept of a 'god' even if we don't believe in it (unless of course gods become like other supernatural creatures, eg we still say 'away with the fairies' and don't believe in fairies). But if the society has completely lost the knowledge that religions existed then that wouldn't work. I think swearing is about what's held sacred and the experience being so shocking/surprising/whatever that the taboo needs to be broken.

I don't know how seriously I would take "Oh my Cor" unless you introduced it earlier in the novel... Readers will just stare at the word "Cor" and forget all about who slept with who.

By Einstein, did you sleep with her?!

:D

The old mad scientist favorite: Great Scott!

There are dozens of other expletives and interjections, such as Great Caesar's Ghost! Modern and contemporary swearing tends to rely on the Carlin Seven, which are becoming more accepted in mainstream media as emotional punctuation.

If you're looking for something with a sacramental feel, a deist / pantheist reference to the universe would suffice "What in Creation compelled you to sleep with her? Are you mad?"

And then you can make your own frackin' swear words, or, starfall willing, your own sacred swears, so long as you remain consistent.

Derek.

I had a similar problem.

Part of my story takes place in a small socialist society that has been isolated from the rest of humanity for roughly a millenia. Consequently, they have a completely different culture, ranging from how they handle personal values, work ethic, relationships and so on. Occasionally I wanted to write something along the lines of "my God!" but then realised that this was because I was putting myself in the situation and thinking about what I'd say. Getting my mind to really think along their lines was much harder but I believe has made just how alien their world is to the reader that much clearer for it. Hopefully after a reread and edit this will only get stronger.

In the meantime, if you're not sure or can't decide, just write
"my God!"*

and somewhere note that * means it needs rethinking later. Don't get bogged down in details now if it's holding you up, because they can easily stop you completing your draft.

My stars! (There's an oldie, but recyclable.)

Criminy! Good night nurse! Jumpin' Jehosaphat! By Jupiter!

Ye gods! I'm channeling Grandma!

BTW, I heard Jon Stewart exclaim, "Jesus Christ, Stephen!" on air recently. I thought it was particularly funny, since Stewart's Jewish. So maybe you don't have to believe in a deity to use its name in vain.

Didn't Huxley invoke the almighty Ford?

May the Schwartz be with you.

I use 'Bah'. Fun can be had by using it in ways that it's not intended to, such as "son of a bah!" or 'you mother bahing bastard'. It could be substituted for god, such as "By Bah!" or "Bah damnit".

Hell'll stick with us even if we as a species gets rid of religion. It's too useful a metaphorical concept to defenestrate. Utopia can generally be substituted for heaven.

If they are polite, 'my goodness'
If they are crude, 'what the f*ck?' or 'Holy sh*t'

I don't remember exactly what it was called, but within the last week or so there was a topic like this on the Character and Plot Realism forum. I seem to recall it got quite extensive. *searches* Ah, here it is:

http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3128128

Might make an interesting read.

Thanks everyone! I'll check out that thread in a moment.

As an atheist myself, I know I use "God" or "Jesus Christ" or whatever sometimes. In fact, I think it makes more sense for an atheist to use them the way I do, because they are meaningless concepts to me now. Saying, "Jesus Christ, did you just eat that whole cake?" seems like something really pathetic to take the lord's name in vain with, you know? But for me it's just an exclamation.

Anyway, for now I've just omitted the use of the term all together. In my rewrites, I'll decide if I want to invent some future slang for them. I know I'll be brushing up a lot of the dialogue, so that'll just be another one. I do appreciate all the suggestions though.

As to the details, it's a future-Earth society, so they haven't forgotten about religions, they just think they're quaint and archaic little fairytales humanity made up in its youth to make them feel better about their place in the universe. It's possible the terms might still be in the vernacular, but I think I'd rather avoid using them, or transmorph them into something else.

Thanks again though. :D

This thread is interesting to me, actually, as a Christian who writes science fiction and fantasy. *G*

My story is set in the future, around, oh, 2170ish, and I extrapolate a timeline where society is mostly agnostic. They're jaded, but they aren't entirely without hope, so they all say "gods" because they concede they just don't know jack, but hope they might.

It's bleak to me personally, but altogether realistic, which is what makes it bleak, I suppose.

"Cheese and rice!"
"Son of a bigotous mongolian monkey-clone!"
"Holy ship's malfuntioning plasma field!"
And my personal favorite:
"What in the name of Davy Crockets sweat-stained buckskins?" (borrowed from a long gone cartoon, The Angry Beavers.)

Well, unless it's critical to your plot, perhaps most of the world can be Deist in a Third Age of Reason instead of outright atheist, or place very little literal value in religion beyond cultural tradition (Shinto in Japan, for example). That way, people could still say God, and even believe in God(s), without it really getting in the way of life (Very little organized religion, per se).

I don't know. Something to think about. I wouldn't go with any really contrived replacements. Frak and Frell are shiny, of course, but profanity and the like should remain simple, with more complex lingual constructions crossing into vulgar wit (which has a much more anarchic treadmill effect) and away from simple obscenity.

I'd use in speech "Selme, did you sleep with him?" (where selme is a conlang expression for debts, it's pronounced zehl-MEH). Or 'Holy mother of Torvalds' (Referring to Linus Torvalds, the inventor and maintained of the Linux kernel). But maybe, they will curse with something really bad: "Looks like we missed the train." "Death and taxes! Now we have to wait 3 hours!"

Of course excremental curses and the F-bomb are great replacements ;)

It isn't integral at all to the plot, other than to say that in the not-too-distant future, humanity has moved on beyond the need of the concept of "God." It's not a plot point, though if they were asked they'd say, "Awww, religion, isn't that quaint?" which is also what they say about things like marriage. So, I'm probably going to avoid the point by omitting it.

But it never hurts to ask. I don't have any future-slang in my story and I had originally intended to. So perhaps I'll add some when I go back through it.

"Deist in a Third Age of Reason."
I like that.

I have a religious conflict going in my not-too-distant-future. On the one side are the Fundamentalist (still looking for a name for their church) End-of-Times fanatics. OTOS we have a sort of New Age blend of Christianity and Gaiaism (if that's a word).

As for future-slang, I had started a forum for that in SF, but it sort of fizzled.

cool LOL

I have the Christo-Druids in mine who think the Earth is their mother and God is their father... they're a weird bunch of puritan luddites with bardic tendencies ... real hard to get along with too... and stand out like sore thumbs in the 23 century

"My Stars"

Merciful Zues!

Oh my science!

... It worked for South Park. =)

What in the blazing meteors were you thinking!? Or there's the less ridiculous standby: For f*ck's sake!

So...this may seem obvious and overly simple, but what about "My stars!" Or something to that effect.

And this is coming from a Christian.

Well, the idea that someone would stop using "my god" just because they are an atheist is ridiculous. It's an expression. I think the idea of a literal Hell is childish and silly but I still say things like "hot as hell" and "go to hell." many words we use today have their roots in the gods and mythological figures of other eras. You don't have to believe (or even know) the story of Tantalus to use the word "tantalize." I think eventually those phrases will join the club of things people say without knowing why.

But, I think if any thing "oh my god!" will go away when people just start saying "omg!" as a word.

My soul! The universe!

The former inspires a sort of spiritual connotation that My God might have. The latter not so much, but still implies an exclamation that doesn't sound totally stupid but isn't one we use today.

non-specified deity?

holy mainframe?

great jumping gobstoppers (ok that was in Doctor Who but it's funny)

In my future people replace "God" with either "who" or "bob" depending on the context.

"Who knows/forbid" = "God knows/forbid"
"Oh my bob" = "Oh my God" (I really like this one; I think it's quite funny, but I can also kind of see it happening)
"bob's sake" = "For God's sake"

I had fun inventing swear words. Basically a society's swear words are going to relate to its greatest taboo, aren't they? So in my world - a little independent island city-state that is fiercely patriotic - people use "terror" as a generic swear word (from terrorism, which is their totally worst thing), as well as "jumping" (which means defecting) and "docking" (just for the way it sounds). People are familiar with our swear words, but "fuck" sounds as archaic to them as "oddsbodikins" would to us.